Three years after the government issued an international request for green hydrogen (GH2) proposals in June 2021, three of the nine projects approved so far say they will go into production by the end of 2024. Cleanergy, HyIron and Daures Green Village have confirmed that they are in the final phases of their respective first-phase pilot projects.

While the lack of local GH2 production is ascribed by experts to a world-wide shortage of electrolyser units, the majority of proposed GH2 projects are lagging behind schedule because of factors ranging from a lack of infrastructure and water to struggling to attract private equity investment.

Stumbling blocks

One of the stumbling blocks is the lack of a legal framework, with a draft Green Hydrogen Bill under development by the Electricity Control Board since last year yet to be tabled in parliament.

Furthermore, the Namibia Investment Promotion and Development Board (NIPDB) that was set up in the Office of the President in January 2021 as executive implementing agency of the green economy plans is yet to be formally gazetted by the ministry of finance.

That implies the statutory position of the green hydrogen commissioner, James Mnyupe, appointed by the late president Hage Geingob in August 2020, is technically still legally invalid.

This legal imbroglio appears to be related to an internal political power struggle in senior government ranks over who would have final authority under the controversial new Namibia Investments Promotions Act that would dictate to foreign investors what sectors they are allowed to invest in and who they are to choose as local black economic empowerment (BEE) partners.

As matters stand at present, the ministry of industrialisation, trade and SME development still legally has jurisdiction over what used to be the ministry’s investment centre before Geingob had moved that function into the Office of the President, NIPDB’s strategic marketing and branding manager Catherine Shipushu confirmed.

Mnyupe had not responded to questions regarding these issues that were emailed to his address at the Office of the President on Friday, 6 September.

The NIPDB also could not provide a full list of all GH2 projects, saying these companies were not obliged to register with them and that only Hyphen Hydrogen had done so thus far.

Political momentum

Since Geingob’s death in early February, the marketing drive for what was to be his economic legacy is losing political momentum in the face of rising public scepticism over the green economy’s feasibility, practicality and environmental impacts on the fragile ecology of the Namib Desert.

The NIPDB has been quietly dialling back the GH2 programme’s ambitions to attract US$190 billion in foreign investments over the next 10 years in mining, manufacturing and agriculture projects planned for the northern, central and southern Green Hydrogen Corridors extending from the Atlantic coastline.

Hyphen Hydrogen Energy, after first acting as adviser to the NIPDB in designing the Southern Development Corridor Initiative and then winning a bid to implement its own proposal, is now a year behind schedule for its mega-project that would first require a new harbour in Lüderitz to be completed but for which construction is yet to be formally announced or put out to public tender.

Since Oxpeckers reported on concerns over the biodiversity and community impacts of the Hyphen project in November 2023 (see Green concerns over green hydrogen), Hyphen has been singled out for stinging criticism from the Namibia Chamber of Environment, which recently issued a position paper that labelled the project as “red hydrogen” because of the expected environmental damage a 4,000-square kilometre industrial plant would wreak on the fragile succulent Karoo ecosystem of the Tsau//Khaeb National Park.

In response, and possibly to reassure German state investors, Hyphen last week conducted a media tour for some of Germany’s most influential news outlets — but did not extend the same invitation to local Namibian media, who mostly could also not afford the US$2,000 entrance fee to the Global African Hydrogen Summit.

New jobs

During a press conference in late August prior to the summit, Mnyupe said that N$170 million (€8,66 million) had been invested so far and 400 new jobs had been generated from eight GH2 projects. A review of public data showed that since 2021 a total of €65.6 million in German, Dutch and European Investment Bank funding had been allocated to five GH2 projects in Namibia.

Of these five foreign-funded projects, only three had started construction, implying most of the 400 jobs created thus far for the three pilot projects scheduled to start producing hydrogen by the end of 2024 were only temporary additional hires by subcontractors during the construction phase.

Research shows actual disbursement has amounted to only 13.2% thus far, suggesting foreign funders have adopted a wait-and-see approach in view of parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled for 29 November.

This has major implications for would-be investors in Namibia’s GH2 economy: apart from abundant wind and solar resources, a small but stable economy and the rule of law, political stability and predictability is regarded as Namibia’s most strategic advantage over its North African competitors.

However, the political fortunes of the ruling Swapo party have been in decline since 2015, with political support dropping by 17% in the 2019 election results, not least because of a corruption scandal that indirectly implicated the late president and has seen two of his former ministers arrested and detained since November 2019 on a range of corruption and money-laundering charges.

This case is scheduled to go to trial in the high court next month. The outcome potentially could have major implications for both Swapo and the Namibian commitment to the green economy.

John Grobler is a Namibia-based associate at Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism. This investigation was supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation, but does not reflect its views.

Find more investigations in our green hydrogen series here.

Not only is this where the roads connecting Namibia’s three (planned) northern and southern Green Hydrogen Corridors intersect, but it is also where hundreds of foreign-registered fuel-tanker trucks pass by every day on their way in or out of the port.

On a recent foggy Friday morning, the majority of those trucks driving past the Cleanergy site were foreign-registered, transporting fuel supplies to the mining industries of the neighbouring landlocked Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Botswana.

So how many of those fuel-tankers must be willing to turn off the highway and fill up at Cleanergy’s two gleaming new hydrogen pumps before the US$30 million investment in a state-of-the-art hydrogen plant and training centre turns a profit?

“The first step is to introduce and gain experience in a completely new technology, which always takes a long time,” especially if it’s necessary to up-skill the local labour pool to make it sustainable, said Sathish Ravi, Cleanergy’s chief site engineer.

Since the late Namibian president, Hage Geingob, announced his ambitious green hydrogen economy initiative in June 2021, Cleanergy — a Belgian-Namibian joint venture between CMB.TECH and Ohlthaver & List — has made the most visible albeit limited progress of nine green hydrogen projects under development, according to independent energy consultant Detlof von Oetzen.

Cleanergy’s 5MW PV solar plant is already installed and can under optimum conditions produce 600kg of green hydrogen a day, or up to 900kg if the solar plant is expanded to enable the electrolyser to run at its maximum design capacity, Ravi explained.

Technological marvel

The Farm 58 plant is a technological marvel of stainless steel and imported high tech, built to the highest European standards with each electrical component earthed to a grid buried underneath the plant.

As for water, the plant will use about 15 cubic metres a day supplied by the municipality — about the same amount used by the local fishing factories. This works out to 25 litres of water for every kilogramme of hydrogen produced, the bulk of which is used for cooling and maintaining the plant.

Although it is not a large amount of water for a plant of this kind, it is a concern in a water-scarce country and municipality. With that in mind, the plant is designed to recycle every drop not used in the electrolysis process to water the gardens the company is establishing around the futuristic new training centre that is expected to open its doors in early 2025.

Most trainees are expected to come from the Namibia Institute for Mining Technology (NIMT), based in Arandis in the Erongo region, to be trained in modifying diesel trucks to hybrid diesel-hydrogen units, among other skills.

This involves altering the intake manifold and fitting a stack of hydrogen tanks that require extending the truck chassis, a process that adds about 30% to the sticker price of a new truck — but will also reduce diesel consumption and related emissions by 30%.

Ravi said that, upon completion, Farm 58 would be the most modern of its kind in the world. He previously worked at CMB-TECH’s Antwerp-based plant, which has been developing hydrogen and ammonia-fuelled hybrid ship engines for the shipping giant’s 146-strong fleet.

Carbon emissions

It is unclear whether the project will contribute to reducing carbon emissions. Many of the passing trucks are older, worn-out, smoke-belching models exported on the cheap from Europe to Africa.

Eike Krafft, group manager: innovations for the Ohlthaver & List Group and Cleanergy development committee member, said that by fitting a stack of six hydrogen tanks and some relatively small modifications to a standard truck’s intake manifold and engine management system, they could take some of the worst polluters off the roads.

As 1kg of hydrogen is energy equivalent to 3.4 litres of diesel, Cleanergy’s daily output of 600kg of hydrogen fuel would be enough to refuel 27 dual fuel trucks, Krafft explained. “Once the current output capacity is reached, the current hydrogen production can be increased by increasing the solar farm or by installing more electrolyser capacity. The technology [is] modularised, so the production capacity can be easily matched with the increasing offtake,” he added.

There are questions about whether the use of green hydrogen and ammonia as fuel is economically viable beyond a few niche uses. Because it requires 55 kilowatt-hours of electricity to produce 33 kilowatt-hours’ worth of hydrogen fuel at an estimated cost of  US$5-9 per kilogramme, many argue it would be more sensible to electrify heavy vehicles directly instead.

International clean energy guru Michael Leibbrich maintains that for this reason, the use of hydrogen for long-distance freight is limited to a “small market share” of specialised, short-haul trucks used in urban environments. Given the cost and scarcity of hydrogen fuel, the hundreds of cross-border long-haul trucks trundling past Farm 58 every day seem an unlikely target market.

‘Future-proofing’

CMB.TECH’s local representative, Liesbeth Verhaert, responded that trucking is just the most visible component of “future-proofing” the Belgian shipping giant’s global operations along every step of the logistical chain. Their primary focus is on developing and testing maritime applications like ammonia-fuelled ship engines for their fleet of new low-carbon vessels currently under construction, she said.

“This is just phase one, the primary goal of which is to conduct research and development on materials like types of steel” and various high-pressure vessels imported from specialist manufacturers, she said. CMB.Tech also planned to test various other applications for powering forklifts, tugboats and other harbour craft as part of their quest to decarbonise their global operations.

The second phase is to procure land from the Arandis Town Council to construct a one gigawatt solar farm and hydrogen plant to produce 185,000 tonnes of ammonia a year. The hydrogen produced in Arandis will be pumped via a 80-km-long, high-pressure carbon-steel pipeline to the Farm 58-based plant at the coast, Verhaert said.

North Port

Here, the hydrogen will be converted to ammonia and pumped 10km to what will be phase three of the project ‚ a 40,000 ton ammonia storage and distribution facility to be constructed in a new industrial zone known as North Port on Walvis Bay’s northern outskirts.

The central feature of North Port is the new National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia’s fuel and gas terminal, designed to accommodate floating storage regasification units to supply the gigantic ships designed to carry liquid natural gas (LNG) in refrigerated tanks.

North Port is central to Namibia’s plans for energy self-sufficiency. Together, North Port and Farm 58 form the core of the official Harambee II development plan to develop Walvis Bay into a regional energy and mineral beneficiation export hub, to be known as the Walvis Bay Gasport.

On the beach along the outskirts of the still-empty North Port industrial zone area, a billboard erected by Namport and the Port of Antwerp Bruges in February during a state visit by Belgium’s King Phillippe proclaims Walvis Bay as “the gateway for Namibia’s green industrialisation process”.

Although phase three is still a few years away, Cleanergy has already reserved space for its ammonia storage and distribution plant at North Port, Krafft confirmed.

Oil refinery

At the local municipal planning office, an environmental impact assessment notice posted on behalf of Ikhaya Somandla Family Trading Enterprises (ISF Trading) shows plans for a 300,000 barrels-per-day oil refinery, a 500MW renewable energy plant, battery energy storage facilities, storage tanks and related offices and warehouses on Portion 46 of the Farm 58 industrial zone.

According to the submitted EIA documentation, ISF Trading plans to take up the largest section of Farm 58, and claims to have major financial backing from investors in Dubai and Brazil — including a US$58-billion line of credit from the Central Bank of Brazil — for the US$83-million project.

ISF states it will create more than 12,000 jobs during construction and nearly 3,500 permanent jobs, including 80 civil, electrical and chemical engineers — in a country that has a shortage of engineers.

Another green hydrogen project, Chiffon Green Hydrogen, as well as a company called Erochem, are to move in next door to Cleanergy, according to ISF’s submitted ground plans.

Like several other green hydrogen proposals currently being promoted, the scale of these other projects appears to ignore real limitations in terms of local capacities, technical know-how and capital — the two key challenges that research indicates Cleanergy has so far managed to overcome.

Roman Grynberg, a local economist, pointed to a third, more compelling reason Cleanergy’s project stands a better chance at success than any of the other green hydrogen projects: in CMB.TECH’s fleet of 106 low-carbon and ammonia-burning ships, the company will probably be its own main client for its own ammonia fuel — and the expenses can be off-set against carbon credits one day — thereby, as CMB.TECH puts it, “future-proofing” all its operations in all respects.

John Grobler is a Namibia-based associate at Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism. This investigation was supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Find more investigations in Oxpeckers’ green hydrogen series here.

“It became very clear that Namibia is badly affected by climate change … with the droughts causing long-term negative effects,” said HyIron chief executive Johannes Michels, a German-Namibian who returned to the country of his birth to take over the family’s farming business 15 years ago.

Together with his partners, HyIron identified steel production as a major but largely ignored aspect of global warming and set about finding a way to produce carbon-free steel as a potential business opportunity.

Their big break came when their proposal for carbon-free steel was successful in a clean energy competition issued five years ago by the regional government of Lower Saxony, a state situated in northwestern Germany, Michels said.

The project is funded by a €13.6 million (about R280 million) grant from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection. It is located on Farm Bloemhof, about 80km inland from the port of Walvis Bay and is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2024.

According to Michels, their proprietary-sealed rotary kiln technology was developed in conjunction with German partners in Lensing, where the first proof-of-concept plant was built. It will produce no waste and, more importantly in drought-stricken Namibia, only use a small amount of water that will be continuously recycled.

Low water

For a former farmer like Michels, this low water requirement is a major selling point in an area that has very little water or any large natural aquifer that can be tapped. Every other green hydrogen project in Namibia will have to construct their own desalinations plants that — environmental impacts aside — can cost as much as $300 million to $400 million, a major upfront expense for a start-up project such as this.

“We will need at most a tanker of water per week that we will bring in from Arandis”, about 40km away from the project site, he said.

About 450 litres of fresh water is required to produce 1kg of  steel using green hydrogen. According to University of Cape Town energy expert Hilton Trollip, it is theoretically possible to set up a production facility with a closed loop water system. He advised that although this technology exists, it has to date not been tested at scale, and will be costly.

HyIron’s Project Oshivela — the Oshiwambo word for iron — is building its first-phase solar plant of 25 megawatts to power the first kiln to be installed. In its final form, the plant will be powered by an 18MW wind and 140MW solar plant.

Michels said the plant will only operate during day-light hours, when it is expected to generate enough renewable energy to produce about five tons of carbon-free steel an hour. Production of 27 000 tonnes of green steel is planned over the first 3 000 hours of this phase.

As for feedstock, HyIron is looking at various options, including sourcing magnetite and hematite from the Lodestone mine, a privately owned mine about 30km out of Dordabis east of Windhoek. Initially, they plan to use scrap steel to produce carbon-free briquetted steel to prevent oxidation of the final product, Michels said.

The construction phase will create 200 jobs, and HyIron expects to employ 50 permanent staff once the project goes into operation in November, he said.

Its low operational cost could provide the economic impetus to Lodestone, a high-grade but relatively small deposit that has struggled to compete in the international market, to develop into a fully-fledged 24/7 operation employing hundreds of people, suggested one of the smaller Lodestone shareholders.

Premium-priced product

So far HyIron has not signed up any clients for their steel product, but there is a lot of interest from German heavy industry looking to take advantage of carbon-credit trading schemes to off-set the cost of what will be a premium-priced product, Michels said.

This was still an untested market, he added: the only other company pursuing the same route is Swedish steel producer SSAB, which is looking to produce five million tonnes of carbon-free steel by 2030 by exclusively using hydropower.

Michels said HyIron is not sure what its product will cost, and the price will be set by whoever enters this market first with big enough volumes to create enough demand for carbon-free steel to be economically sustainable.

HyIron will be the only steel producer that exclusively uses renewable energy for producing carbon-free steel, and as such expects their product to command a price premium. To that extent, he expected HyIron to set the price for as long as they enjoy this market position, he explained.

Ammonia fuel

On the neighbouring farm Geluk, a joint venture is developing a solar and wind farm for a project that aims to produce ammonia fuel for shipping and rail transport. But it appears to have stalled.

Of nine green hydrogen projects under development in Namibia, this has generally been regarded as the most promising because of the involvement of local private capital, according to independent energy consultant Detlof von Oetzen. It is a joint venture between Belgian maritime company CMB.Tech and local agro-industrial giant Ohlthaver & List’s Clean Energy Solutions.

Unlike HyIron’s stand-alone design, this project has many moving parts: a solar- and wind-powered alkaline-based hydrogen plant on Geluk. It is to be linked by a 75km power line, a high-pressure hydrogen pipeline and a water pipeline pumping distilled water up from the coast in order to supply the hydrogen plant.

According to its environmental impact assessment report, the project plans to generate renewable energy to power a yet-to-be-commissioned coastal desalination plant that will supply the inland hydrogen plant, which will in turn pump ammonia down to the hydrogen refuelling station.

Clean energy market

This hydrogen station on Farm 58, about 10km outside Walvis Bay, was inaugurated during a state visit by Belgium’s King Phillippe in late February. The Belgian interest in Namibian green ammonia appears related to King Phillippe’s investment in shipping, and with Antwerp being a major energy hub for central Europe, could see ammonia fuel gain traction in the clean energy market, said economist Roman Grynberg.

The project at Farm 58 is not only one of many moving parts, but also of many partners (CMB.Tech, Clean Energy Solutions, Elof Hansson Green Hydrogen Namibia and Powerplay Investments) who appear to be in some dispute at the moment, said Institute of Public Policy Research executive director Graham Hopwood.

The infrastructure costs are formidable: a desalination plant large enough to supply enough water to produce two millions tons of ammonia annually, with the water having to be pumped 75km inland — and uphill — to the hydrogen plant on Farm Geluk, in addition to a high-pressure hydrogen pipeline to deliver the hydrogen to CMB.Tech’s ammonia plant on Farm 58, and a powerline to bring enough electricity from Farm Geluk down to the coast to power both the desalination plant and ammonia production facility.

“There appears to be some disagreement on how to meet development costs,” Hopwood said in a brief telephonic interview. CMB.Tech and Clean Energy Solutions did not respond to requests for comment.

UPDATE: CMB.Tech and Clean Energy Solutions reached out post-publication to clarify that even though they are using the same Walvis Bay sites as Elof Hansson Green Hydrogen, there is no relationship between these two companies or their projects. The next article in the series will clarify this to the full extent.

John Grobler is a Namibia-based associate at Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism. This investigation is part of a #PowerTracker series on green hydrogen, supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

President Hage Geingob, in his recent State of the Nation address to parliament, defended Namibia’s ties with North Korea, claiming their soldiers fought alongside Swapo during the liberation struggle years. 

Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, Geingob’s deputy and minister of international co-operation, found herself in a diplomatic minefield after she confirmed a wide-ranging military co-operation programme with North Korea — but she repeatedly claimed this co-operation had been a thing of the past since 2005.

This turned out to be somewhat short of the full truth, as the United Nations’ Panel of Experts on North Korea noted in their February 22 report on international compliance with sanctions against Pyongyang.

Just how far this fell short of full disclosure soon became apparent, an independent investigation shows. 

On the Sunday night of October 13 2012, a convoy of about 20 privately-owned trucks, their bulky loads covered with tarpaulins, left the Walvis Bay harbour under the cover of darkness and the thick fog rolling in from the Atlantic. Their destination, witnesses said, was an old copper mine at Oamites, about 40km south of Windhoek. 

The client’s insistence on using heavy tarpaulins to cover the loads struck the truck drivers as a little odd, because they thought they were moving mining equipment. 

The rusty state of several dozen high-pressure steel tanks suggested these had been at sea for several months, the sources said.

A large number of wooden crates were marked “Contract STNK-0103050”, with the Namibian Defence Force’s signatory red triangle, said one of the truckers.

The sea rusted tanks were taken to the new military complex at Groot Aub.

The client was August 26 (Pty) Ltd, the Namibian Defence Force’s commercial arm. It was formed in August 1998 under Namibian founding president Sam Nujoma’s prompting to take advantage of business opportunities that arose as result of Namibia’s military backing of Democratic Republic of Congo president Laurent-Desiréé Kabila. 

August 26, named after the day South African forces attacked Swapo guerrillas at Omugulugwombashe in 1966, was initially used to hold the right to a diamond concession given by Kabila to Nujoma as payment for backing his tottering regime with 6?000 troops, helicopters, weapons, armoured personnel carriers and other supplies. By 2014, August 26 had grown to eight subsidiary companies and in 18 years it has not submitted annual financial reports to Parliament or been audited.

Queries stonewalled 
At Oamites, the truck drivers were met by a contingent of North Korean engineers and technicians who supervised the off-loading inside a large compound surrounded by a 4m wall with tight security at the entrance. The military complex was built by North Korea’s Mansudae Overseas Projects, as with all other military and monument construction projects for the ministries of defence and of veterans’ affairs.

A heavy-duty crane was hired to do the job. The load consisted of several large high-pressure chemical cracking towers, industrial mixers and dozens of crates. 

“I first thought the stuff had come from Thailand; the paperwork was in some weird handwriting, like Chinese but different,” said the manager of a company involved. He had no reason to not believe the load was anything else but mining equipment. Like nearly everyone who agreed to be interviewed, he spoke on condition of anonymity. 

The ministries of international co-operation and of defence have stonewalled queries about when the military complex at Oamites was built.

Nandi-Ndaitwah recently told The Namibian that the ministry of defence had several military co-operation agreements with North Korea. These included the construction of a munitions factory at Oamites, the Suiderhof military headquarters in Windhoek and a military school and museum in Okahandja, 72km north of Windhoek. The museum has remained closed to the public since it was completed in 2006. 

Nandi-Ndaitwah said these contracts were implemented from 2002 to 2005, before UN Security Council Resolution 1718 was passed, and Namibia was therefore not in violation of any UN Security Council resolutions. Resolution 1718 bans transfer and trade of military technology with North Korea.

Prior to this the defence minister, Penda ya Ndakola, told Die Republikein that he knew nothing about a munitions plant or North Korea being involved with the new military headquarters. The newspaper’s questions were prompted when a February 22 report by the United Nations Panel of Experts on North Korea’s nuclear weapon development programme was leaked to it.

UN panel not aware of new military plant
The panel was set up in 2009 to enforce compliance with the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which banned, among others, any technology transfer or training that could be used for military purposes between North Korea and UN member countries.

The panel noted that Namibia had formally admitted in correspondence with them to the North Korean joint ventures, but claimed these had come to an end in 2005.

Satellite imagery used by the panel shows that the construction projects, including an unexplained new structure at the main military base outside Windhoek, were still ongoing. The experts noted that at “the time of writing, Namibia had not replied regarding the purpose of the facility under construction”.

The panel, however, appeared to not have been aware of the military complex at the old Oamites mine as their report made no reference to it or to North Korean presence there. 

Historical satellite imagery of the Oamites plant, obtained via Google Earth, showed construction starting in early 2010, six months after Resolution 1874 was passed. Sources at the settlement confirmed that the complex and the accommodation facilities for military staff were built by the North Korean team.

Several international weapons experts, including those previously employed by the UN as consultants, agreed that the design of the complex closely corresponded to a typical design for a munitions plant.

The general opinion was that the chemical plant moved to Oamites in October 2012 was probably part of a production line for propellants. About 24 computer-controlled lathes, seen by a witness in the main central facility, indicated that this facility was a major munitions plant.

Weapons expert Rod Barton, in his analysis for the UN experts, said the layout of the buildings and security around the central plant closely corresponded with the design of a munitions plant — but not a chemical weapons plant, as some had feared.

“Overall, my view is that the plant is not a major chemical production plant and almost certainly not a chemical weapons facility. It is consistent with a propellant mixing/preparation plant, for example for the production of powder propellants. The buildings storing possible explosives and the possible [test] firing building would fit in with this,” he said by email.

Namibian government seems unconcerned
Inscriptions engraved on some of the tanks are in Chinese, one of which translated to “Do not vent contents”, suggesting that at least some of the plant may have originated in China, rather than North Korea.

What also remained unstated in the UN panel’s report is that the Windhoek military headquarters and Okahandja military school are financed by soft loans from China — a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

China’s Poly Technologies have become Namibia’s main suppliers of military equipment since the early 2000s, supplying the air force with Chengdu F-7 and Hongdu KW-8 fighter-trainers and a large number of armoured personnel carriers

Because of the sensitivity of the matter, the UN experts contacted were not willing to comment on the record, save to say that the challenge lay in proving that Mansudae Overseas Projects was a front for North Korean companies specified under the five different sets of sanctions imposed since 2006. 

Mansudae is North Korea’s official art studio responsible for building monuments. It has been used in Namibia for military construction work since sanctions were imposed in 2006. 

The Namibian government seems unconcerned; co-operation with North Korea was based on Pyongyang’s support for the liberation struggle. But historians are puzzled by this claim. North Korea was not among the 30 countries where Swapo had representation, said André du Pisani, professor emeritus at the University of Namibia.

Instead, this relationship appeared to be based on the personal relationship between Nujoma and the Kim family. A review of news articles dating back to independence in 1990 showed that he had visited North Korea no fewer than 11 times.

On his last visit in 2005, 100?000 North Koreans lined the road to cheer Nujoma on his way to Pyongyang. Jong Il, the father of current North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, presented Nujoma with a Korean translation of his hagiography, Where Others Wavered, Xinhua news service reported that year.

Nujoma also personally pushed for each of the prestige projects that the North Koreans were involved in, from the new State House (funded by a $300-million Chinese grant) to personally selecting the site for the Independence Memorial in Windhoek, well-placed sources said.

All the UN experts consulted were in agreement on one aspect: Namibia was clearly in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution sanctions, and especially of those passed since June 2009. Manufacturing munitions with North Korean training “falls under same rubric” as sanctions banning the transfer of any military technology, one highly-placed UN source said.

Namibia now also faced questions about how Mansudae Overseas was being paid by the Namibian government, given that North Korea has been banned from participating in the international financial system under Resolution 1874 of 2009. 

Annexes to the panel’s report show that two key officials, who the UN identified as employed by the North Korean military’s arms programme, had used Namibia as their base, leaving the country every two months to return to North Korea via Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, another close ally of the Namibia government.

This article was supported by the African Network of Centers for Investigating Reporting (ANCIR) and the Connecting Continents grant.

Built by North Korean construction company Mansudae Overseas Corporation at a rumoured cost of more than R150-million over the past three years, it is the latest in a series of prestige political projects that includes Heroes' Acre, State House and a military museum.

Just why the North Koreans have a headlock over all contracts to build national monuments in Namibia on a no-bid basis remains a mystery. Their workmanship is poor and Heroes' Acre, completed in 2002 for about R100-million, is already falling apart and undergoing renovations. 

There are some obvious clues: The eight-metre statue of The Unknown Soldier towering over Heroes' Acre is very clearly that of Namibia's founding president Sam Nujoma. Like the Kims of North Korea, Nujoma venerates the mythology of military struggle, even though neither he nor the Kims ever saw much military action. 

It is hazy what exactly the real nature of Namibia's official relationship with the North Koreans is. But what is clear is that North Korea enjoys something of a special relationship with Namibia's ageing leadership: each of these prestige ventures has been a pet project of Nujoma, and awarded to Mansudae without any tender. The projects include renovations to Nujoma's private home on his Etunda farm, according to documents seen by the Mail & Guardian. 

"The deals between Swapo, the government and North Korea are shrouded in mystery," said Ben Ulenga, a former guerilla and Robben Island veteran, who is now opposition leader. 

North Korea has no history of collaborating with Swapo during the liberation struggle from 1963 to 1989 and, as far as could be established, only established an embassy in Windhoek after the country gained independence. The first staff members, however, soon fled again after they were implicated in fraudulent car deals with Angola, and it is not even clear whether the country has any form of official representation in Namibia.

Repeated questions to the Namibian ministry of foreign affairs remain unanswered, in spite of assurances to the contrary: some areas of government policy seemingly remain beyond the ambit of any public discussion, even though Namibia has spent, conservatively, about R500-million on the Mansudae-built monuments.

A trawl through North Korea-watching websites show that Mansudae Overseas is one of about 120 foreign-trade companies controlled by the Kim family through the highly secretive Bureau 39 in Pyongyang. United States law enforcement officials believe Bureau 39 provides the Pyongyang palace economy with income of $500-million to $1-billion a year. 

The US state department's bureau of research and intelligence believes that the largest part of this income is derived from trade in forged $100 bills and the alleged manufacture of drugs.

Earlier this week, Permanent Secretary of Finance Erica Shafuda admitted that the government was scrambling for additional funding to pay pensions and disability grants after the contingency fund was depleted before the end of the ­current financial year.

Shafuda told the Namibian that a sharp increase in the number of pensioners and disabled people had placed a severe strain on the ­ministry of labour and social welfare's budget.

Cabinet was approach­ed for permission to make up the shortfall from the emergency fund, but this still left the government with a R100-million shortfall to pay the next two months' grants to 144 244 pensioners and 26 277 disabled people. Namibia's population is 2.1-million.

Other senior government officials, however, painted this as a relatively minor problem, pointing to international rating agency Moody's recent rating of Namibia's creditworthiness as Baa3, in line with an assessment by Fitch as BBB- last year.

Moody's took a generally upbeat view of Namibia's debt management, assigning an A3 rating to the country's sovereign debt and opining that, although the government had intended to raise debt to about 30% of gross domestic product, it was unlikely to do so because of inadequate spending capacity.

The rating reflected the country's track record of "responsible budget management and maintenance of low public debts as well as investor- friendly policy framework balanced against structural legacy challenges posed by wide income disparities, high unemployment and dependence upon the mining sector for ­foreign exchange earnings", Moody's said.

As a result, Namibia successfully secured a R850-million, 10-year bond on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in November last year as part of plans to raise R3-billion in the South African capital markets.

Wildcat strike
Both the ratings and the bond issuance, however, came before the Namibian government found itself embroiled in a wildcat strike by teachers at the end of last year. They were demanding higher pay after negotiations lasting more than two years had failed to produce an agreement.

One radical faction had demanded that teachers' pay be upped by as much as 40%, failing which they would call for a general strike.

The government responded initially by declaring several services as essential, and so outlawing any strikes by nurses, teachers, police and soldiers, among others.

This in turn was followed by a recommendation by a panel set up to review remuneration for Namibia's political office bearers. The panel said their pay should be raised by 31%.

Faced with the prospect of the entire civil service becoming involved in the strike, the Namibian government then approved an 8% across-the-board increase for all civil servants.

Political office bearers were then given a 15% increase that, though half of what was recommended by Judge President Petrus Damaseb, still amounted to double the increase given to the general civil service.

Bailouts and subsidies
The financial woes, however, did not end there. It emerged that Air Namibia, which has swallowed about R3.6-billion in bailouts and subsidies since 1990, would need another major bailout if it was to continue operating.

The ever-struggling airline has had to resort to refuelling in Luanda – at three times the local cost – after Engen refused to supply more fuel unless an outstanding bill of R70-million was settled.

Namibia Broadcasting Corporation, the state broadcaster, late last year also reported that it could not pay December salaries, but appears to have been once again thrown a lifeline by the government.

The most recent available figures suggested that almost every one of Namibia's 55-odd parastatals was struggling financially, with only the Bank of Namibia and port operator Namport regularly showing a profit.

It therefore remains to be seen whether the ratings by Fitch and Moody's will hold true.

As happened in 1995, key industries such as fishing, mining, tourism and ­agriculture have slumped as a result of negative international market ­conditions, and a disappointing rainy season so far suggests that a drought is on the way.

In a major political realignment seemingly aimed at improving service delivery in all key ministries except finance, health and education, Pohamba appeared to be preparing the ground for a new political direction for Namibia's ruling party, as signalled by the election of Swapo's moderates to its top four positions.

For Geingob, who was Namibia's first prime minister after independence until he was suddenly dismissed by former president Sam Nujoma in 2002, it affirmed his reputation as the comeback kid of Namibian politics. He had spent several years in the political wilderness before being appointed trade and industry minister in 2007.

His victory this week is widely seen as a win for the moderates in Swapo. Geingob beat rivals Jerry Ekandjo and Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana by a convincing margin and none of the hardliners' candidates – including Uutoni Nujoma (Nujoma's son) – made it into the top positions in the party.

Pohamba's surprise reshuffle also appeared to be aimed at dismantling rival political empires in the public service, with Ekandjo relegated to the youth ministry. Iivula-Ithana, who during the congress appeared to back Geingob, was moved from justice to home affairs, an apparent award for backing Geingob rather than Ekandjo, which had been widely expected.

Similarly, as a political sop to the loyalist hardliners, Nujoma Jr was moved from foreign affairs to justice, where he had previously deputised for Iivula-Ithana.

The congress was also notable for how Nujoma's influence has waned since 2005. Although he avoided endorsing any specific candidate, he did call for greater female representation, which was seen as being supportive of Iivula-Ithana's candidacy. She was trounced in the polls, however, getting only 10.7%of the vote, as opposed to Ekandjo's 37% and Geingob's winning 52.3%.

What riled the delegates most was how Iivula-Ithana was seemingly betrayed by Uutoni Nujoma, who first nominated her, but then campaigned on behalf of Ekandjo after the latter nominated him as secretary general.

More than anything else, making Geingob Swapo's political crown prince signalled a move away from glorifying its military struggle to a more outward-looking party that attaches more weight to actual administrative and political ability.

For Geingob, who sometimes visibly chafed under Nujoma's rule (from 1990 to 2005), it has been a vindication of his political career, which started in 1961 when he joined Swapo and soon after became the party's voice at the United Nations. As a member of the minority Damara people, he was always viewed with some distrust by the party conservatives and narrowly escaped being incarcerated in Lubango with other dissidents in the late 1980s.

In a party in which cultural protocols often override political ones, Geingob's open ambition to succeed Nujoma was often frowned upon and is believed to have played a major part in his sudden dismissal as prime minister in 2002. His supporters, mostly among business people and intellectuals, said his election was proof that Swapo had realigned itself to modern political realities.

But questions remain, not least about Geingob's personal probity: twice divorced and fond of the good life, his name has in the past often been connected to dubious deals.

Attorney general Albert Kawana – a noted hardliner – announced last Friday that the government would launch lifestyle audits of all leading government officials. The implied threat to Geingob was hard to miss.

This week, Prime Minister Nahas Angula warned the strikers that stern action would be taken and called on them to avoid a "Marikana scenario".

Despite a court order obtained on November 2 to force about a tenth of Namibia's 23 000 teachers back into the classrooms, they have vowed to increase the pressure on the government and some are now demanding salary increases of 40%.

The teachers, frustrated by the slow pace of wage negotiations between their two unions and the government that started last year, started picketing schools around the country on November 1.

The government could not say how many teachers had gone on strike.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communication Technology Stanley Simataa this week warned at a press conference that continued defiance of the court order "has the potential to yield undesirable consequences", but he would not spell out what those would be.

The teachers have now made common cause with equally disaffected state nurses, who threatened to go on an indefinite strike about two months ago if their demands for better pay and improved working conditions were not met.

Right to strike
In response, the government had the health sector declared an essential service, like the police or army, thereby basically outlawing their right to strike.

At the heart of the matter is growing distrust between teachers, nurses and the civil service in general and the leadership of their respective unions.

It should also come as no surprise that the disaffected elements in Namibia's 85 000-strong civil service are receiving strong support from firebrand unionist Evilastus Kaaronda, who was summarily dismissed last week from his position as general secretary of the National Union of Namibian Workers, the umbrella union affiliated to the ruling Swapo party.

Kaaronda and the union's president, Elias Manga, were both fired without any notice or due process being followed by the union's central executive committee at an emergency meeting at the end of last month. It is a telling sign of the extent to which Swapo's political embrace has transcended the ideals and aims of Namibia's equivalent of Cosatu in South Africa.

But unlike Cosatu, the union's apparatchiks are very clear about where their true loyalties lie and were willing to get rid of troublesome people like Kaaronda, who has been leading the charge to have those who stole R550-million from the civil servants' pension fund between 1999 and 2001 prosecuted.

The timing of the teachers' strike coincides with an internal Swapo power struggle over the nomination of the party's presidential candidate for the 2014 elections – when President Hifikepunye Pohamba will retire – and appears to have raised official hackles. Simataa warned about "groups of individuals" canvassing civil servants to support a general strike.

Ironically, the apparent presidential frontrunner, Regional and Local Government and Housing Minister Jerry Ekandjo, is himself a former unionist. But his well-known homophobia and hardline views on any political opposition suggest he will have little sympathy for the teachers' fight for better pay.

So, should Ekandjo clinch the presidential nomination at the end of this month, which he seems likely to do, a widespread strike could well escalate into Namibia's own Marikana moment.

With Swapo the dominant force in Namibian politics since 1990, the party's presidential candidate is the most likely to be elected as Namibia's next president in national elections scheduled for the end of 2014.

A third or more candidates could still be nominated during the Swapo congress in November that has to confirm the party's presidential candidate for the 2014 election, with Regional, Local Government and Housing Minister Jerry Ekandjo's name the one most often mentioned.

Angula's sudden withdrawal is widely seen as a sign of Swapo's polarisation, a political drift to the right, to populism and a deepening rift between non-Oswhiwambo- speaking members and the party's hard-core support base in central and northern Namibia.

Iivula-Ithana's grip on party branch structures in her position as Swapo secretary general gives her a critical edge in the battle, as control over who will be delegated to attend the congress will prove critical.

The Namibian Press Agency reported that President Hifikepunye Pohamba nominated Trade and Industry Minister Geingob as the party's vice-president at a politburo meeting on Tuesday, while Justice Minister Iivula-Ithana was nominated by Foreign Affairs Minister Uutoni Nujoma, the son of former president Sam Nujoma.

Nujoma Jr's own candidacy as presidential successor was widely touted last year, and his backing of Iivula-Ithana is therefore seen as his father's implicit support for her, a factor that is likely to prove decisive in the November showdown.

"The ghost of 2004 is on the loose again," said Nico Kaiyamo, an outspoken pro-Geingob proponent in Swapo when he appealed for the candidates to "leave the old man [Nujoma] to enjoy his retirement".

Swapo liberation hero Hidipo Hamutenya was summarily fired by then-president Nujoma in 2004 after he unilaterally announced his candidacy to succeed Namibia's first president.

 The current battle has caused new divisions among the party's rank and file, with seven out of 13 regional preparatory conferences forced by Swapo headquarters to rerun their election of delegates over the past few months. Geingob's supporters were largely the losers in these new elections.

Similar manoeuvrings could be observed in the Swapo Youth League, where Elijah Ngurare was re-elected as secretary general unopposed after his would-be opponent withdrew from the race after nominations had closed. Ngurare, who at 42 is well over the age limit of 35 years to hold office in the league, denied that there was anything untoward in how he regained his position.

As in South Africa, where the battle to succeed President Jacob Zuma has caused rifts between sections of organised labour and the ANC, political support from Swapo-affiliated unions is also uncertain. The most powerful union, the National Union of Namibian Workers, was involved in a leadership crisis when nine members of the subsidiary Mineworkers Union of Namibia were suspended for alleged financial irregularities and mismanagement.

In an interview with a weekly newspaper – widely seen as a backer of Trade Minister Hage Geingob's bid for the presidency in 2014 – the outspoken Kazenambo rejected Ngurare's recent unopposed re-election as the youth league's boss.

He said Ngurare was a "fake" and a "political ghost", who appeared as if out of nowhere in 2000.

Ngurare, whose loyalties lie with Swapo's secretary general, Justice Minister Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana, in turn said Kazenambo behaved "like a chicken on drugs" [and] "an unrehabilitable political delinquent".

The war of words between the pair is just the latest sign of a widening crack in Swapo's façade of unity as the fight for the 2014 presidential candidacy heats up.

In the past month, results from seven out of 13 regional conferences  – which decide who will attend the congress in November that will select the next presidential candidate – have been annulled by the party's headquarters over alleged irregularities and vote-buying.

Losing side
Recently, there were indications that Geingob, who is Swapo's vice- president, could be on the losing side because Iivula-Ithana's control over the day-to-day running of the party's affairs has given her a distinct ­tactical advantage.

Earlier this year, President Hifikepunye Pohamba forbade any campaigning for positions for his successor, but all the signs are that the November congress could be a repeat of the one in 2004 that elected him over former trade minister Hidipo Hamutenya.

In that election, Hamutenya was defeated after Prime Minister Nahas Angula split the pro-reformist vote and delivered victory to Pohamba, who was former president Sam Nujoma's preferred candidate.

Hamutenya, who was unceremoniously fired as trade minister by Nujoma on the day he announced his candidacy, broke away from Swapo in 2007 with several other senior politicians and formed the opposition Rally for Democracy and Progress.

Liberation war hero Ben Ulenga broke away years before – in 1999 – to form the Congress of Democrats.

With Swapo having suffered two breakaways by rebels, an Angula presidential candidacy appears the surest way for Swapo to stay united, although the congress will be another three-way fight between Geingob, Iivula-Ithana and Angula.

Angula's decision to stand as a presidential candidate appeared to have drawn on the lessons learnt in 2004: although Geingob would ­conceivably be willing to serve in a possible Angula Cabinet, Iivula-Ithana's more vengeful nature would alienate him.

Geingob, Namibia's prime minister from 1990 to 2002, is seen as a progressive and pro-business candidate, whereas Iivula-Ithana's support is centred in the youth league.